“Even so,” Adam said. “What in the world would make you want to go back there?”

“I think that’s where David’s killer is,” I said.

“All the more reason not to go back,” Rob said. “Look, I know that you were really starting to care about David and what you did for him was nothing short of miraculous. I agree that his death shouldn’t have happened and that it deserves to be avenged and figured out. But didn’t we already decide that we weren’t about vengeance anymore?’

“Yeah, we did,” I said as I looked at the long strand of hair that I had put in an empty glass jar. “But I think I might have just changed my mind.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in finding peace anymore, or that I had forgotten how horrible and hard the years at Lineage had been. I hadn’t. All of those experiences were cruelly and permanently burned into my memory. But the path kept shifting each time like moving sand beneath my feet. I tried the way of peacefully moving on and letting go, and destruction found us here anyway. Maybe the root of the problem wasn’t any of the things I had tried before. Maybe it wasn’t something as blatant as drug-trafficking or as difficult as past traumas.

Maybe it was something entirely different.

Something wrapped in a pretty, blonde package.

Not long after, I found myself and the guys heading back to Lineage again to figure out what was going on. And none of the guys were happy with me to be making the journey back.

“Ugh,” Adam said as he looked out the window at the Lineage campus coming into view. “I didn’t think in a million years that I would ever be back here.”

“Yeah I have to admit,” Rob said. “I didn’t spend that much time on these school grounds, but even I’m not happy to be back.”

Michael found a place to park and we all sat inside the car for a few minutes before getting out.

“Look guys,” I said as I tried to give both them, and myself, a much-needed pep talk. “We won’t stay long. I just want to see if we can find that girl and talk to her. If nothing turns up, then we’ll head straight back home.”

We all got out of the car and started a slow walk across the campus to the main office building. It was eerie how familiar everything felt. Except there had been a few noticeable changes made. The overhead walkways had been removed and it looked as though the campuses had been separated back into two schools again. Whoever was running the school now must have wanted it to be more like it was back in the initial days when the schools were founded. It even looked as if Goldshire’s name and logo had been restored from what I could see as I squinted over to the other college grounds and saw their school flag waving on a pole in the wind.

Lineage campus was bustling with students and they all appeared to be busy and happy and full of school spirit.

But, I knew better than that.

“Excuse me,” Michael said to a passing student as she walked by.

The girl stopped and looked at him and he cleared his throat.

“Who is running the school now?” he asked her point-blank.

“Headmistress Layla,” the girl said with a smile. “Are you guys new here? You’re going to love her.”

“I’m sure we will, thank you,” Michael said as he flashed a smile at the girl that made her blush while she walked away.

“Who the hell is that?” Adam asked.

I shrugged. “No idea. Let’s go introduce ourselves and find out.

When we walked into the main office building, things all seemed to be perfectly above-board. Which was a complete change for this school.

“Can I help you?” a woman from behind a desk called.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re here to speak with the Headmistress.”

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

“No, oops I’m sorry. I thought we could just walk in.” I tried to act flighty and casual. “We were interested in doing our grad work here,” I lied. “And we’re hoping we could find out some more information before applying.”

“Oh, you don’t need the headmistress for that,” she said. “I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have and to show you around so that you can see how we do things here.”

That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to happen, but it was better than nothing and at least would get us into a few doors, hopefully.

After a few hours of listening to the woman ramble on about how great the school was and following her from building to building as she gave us a tour of the place we knew all too well, it looked like the guys were ready to hang themselves from the nearest tree just to end the suffering of her incessant talking. We needed to come up with a different way to go about getting to see the Headmistress.

But as luck would have it, we didn’t even need to try.

“Oh, Layla,” the woman said cheerfully as the office door behind her opened and out stepped a beautiful woman with golden-blonde hair that stretched down to her waist. “These people were just here to ask about doing some graduate work on campus.”

The woman stopped dead in her tracks and stared at us. She didn’t necessarily look nervous or flustered, but she did look surprised. I tried to compare her features with those of the woman from the night of the masquerade party. But there had been so many things impeding both my vision and my judgement that night—the hallucinogenic in the air, the mask, and costume that covered almost all of her completely. The only thing that I recognized was her hair, and it was certainly possible for other women to have long, golden-blonde hair.

I could tell that the guys didn’t recognize her at all, though.

I doubt that they had even paid her that much attention on the night of the masquerade party, assuming that it was even her.

“Thank you,” Layla said to the woman as she regained her calm, business-like demeanor. “Please,” she said as she motioned for us to join us in her office. “Come in.”

The woman at the desk outside Layla’s office brought in a couple of extra chairs so that we could all sit down. Then she closed the office door and left us to speak with Layla privately.

“So, you are running the school now?” I asked as soon as the office door had closed.

I suppose that I might have wanted to be more subtle about it, but I didn’t much see the point. We all wanted to get back out of here as quickly as possible. Better to just cut to the chase than waste precious time.

“Yes,” she answered with a smooth voice, where the word seemed to slide of her tongue like velvet. “My apologies,” she said. “But do I know you? You look familiar to me.”

“I believe I saw you at last winter’s Lineage Masquerade Gala,” I said.

Again, no hesitation. I was all done playing games.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t at that event,” she said. “Must have been someone else.”

I didn’t believe her, though.

“So, what can I help you all with?” she asked flippantly.

“We’re going to do some grad work,” Rob said as he picked up from there.

He must have already known how to do a good job at faking being a grad student because he did, after all, do it back when David was running the school.

Although I do seem to remember David figuring it out and calling Rob’s bluff.

Rob nodded his head as he talked. “We would like to find a college that we could all stay together in a cohort of sorts, and I’d heard that Lineage offers such a program.”

“We do,” she said.